Monday, September 12, 2011

‎"You cannot love anyone, if you don't love yourself" I find this true.For the longest time, i did not love myself.But damn it, I do love myself and myself says I love you. So there! Take it or leave it!I am too awesome, regal, and impor...tant to deal with your bullshit. --this is not ego speaking, this is the truth-- I am very busy, and I am a warrior. I go into battle every day to be all I can be. And I love you. So take it or leave it. I wish you the best; now, I must dance.

Friday, September 9, 2011

THIS IS A DANCE WORK I MADE FOR MY CLASS: DANCE ON CAMERA.IT IS A DANCE FILM ABOUT MOVING, AND MOVING ON; FROM STILLNESS, TO DARKNESS.....IT IS ALSO A DANCE FILM WITHOUT ANY BODIES IN IT (AS IS THE ASSIGNMENT)...

In honor of the inauguration of Alecia A. DeCoudreaux as Mills College president, we invite you to attend a one-of-a-kind performance of experimental music and contemporary dance that is quintessentially Mills.

The Mills Percussion Group, conducted by famed composer, conductor, and Mills faculty member Steed Cowart, will perform Credo in Us by avant-garde composer John Cage. This lively mix of jazz, blues, percussion, and live radio/DJ was composed in 1942 for Cage’s first collaboration with choreographer Merce Cunningham. For this occasion a newly commissioned dance to Credo in Us by award-winning choreographer, alumna, and Mills faculty member Molissa Fenley ’75 will be performed by members of her New York-based dance companyalong with both current and past dance MFA students(which included me, Cuauhtemoc!)in the Mills College Art Museum.Before the performances, explore the open studios of our MFA students and see the cutting-edge visual arts being created at Mills every day. A dessert reception follows.

"These beautiful models were walking around in the room, and then suddenly this woman who wouldn't be considered beautiful was revealed. It was about trying to trap something that wasn't conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within." -Alexander McQueen. Brilliant. --Eric*

..I like to think of the differences between: "hot" "beautiful" and "desirable"...

----where "hot" is a social construct of our silly society--a colonization telling us what we need to be, and go after....----"beautiful" is that which holds some ...kind of catharsis within it that helps us feel an ephemeral sensation of happiness/understanding/flow...i.e. "ART"....---- "desire" is like lust, or that which is biologically programed in us to want--penises get hard for something, not because it is beautiful, but because it is imprinted on us to fuck it....

...lolz....(?--too much?)...

----what is important to remember, is that just because you don't want to fuck it, does not mean it is not beautiful or important to our lives....

*eric is a good friend of mine who has some interesting ideas i like to explore

What if I changed my thesis topic to the "Dominance and Subordination by the Performance of Male and Female Go-Go Dancers"--how the human eye objectifies or subjectifies these living things....and what power they have over the audience/viewer...and what they mean to our culture, to our expectations, to our desires, to our ideals, and to our reality....oooo, sounds like a great paper! ugh! so much to write, so little time :/

More importantly, I am really interested in how we view Female Go-Go vs. Male Go-Go. Less thinking about strippers, or prostitutes (which is what they suggest) more, the art of Go-Go....and how are they seen but the queer world, and the straight world....what is in the performance of this "kind" of sexuality and aesthetic? What is their place? what sensations does their dancing bring about? ooo so interesting :D

Hello my friends. I am sorry for not posting so often these last few weeks, but I have been extremely busy with my school work.

I have just had my first full week of school, And I am very excited for the new year! Especially my dance on camera class, taught by Shinichi Iova-Koga. I will be making dance film, vs. documentation of dance, and I will know a lot more about turning a dance work into a material thing--which is very intriguing to me. Often times you have to 'dance' dance for it to exist. It is in the DANCING of the dance that it is born, alive, decays, dissipates. All within one moment. But if it is on camera, built for a film--all you have to do is press play--just like an MP3 or open up a .jpg....I think that whole concept is very interesting....It's gonna take work, but I am ready.

Other than That, I wanted to announce that I DID IN FACT GET THE QUEER CULTURAL CENTER GRANT FOR THE MILESTONES PROJECT TO PRESENT AT THE NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL IN JUNE!!!So look out for me an my work in the coming year! I will be dancing :D

Lastly, I am sad to say I will have to leave NEW FIRE. a play that is scheduled for January. It pisses me off that I have to leave, but it has to be done. with the rehearsal schedule, my thesis, and my rehearsal schedule, and the extremely low pay for a "not really working student", plus no equity points...its too much to be asking from me. I had thought i could do it! It sounded like a great play, but I just can't....

Maybe if i worked out the rehearsal schedule, but honestly, it gives them very little time to work with me, and will cost me too much money to be going back and forth from Oakland to SF...I would need at least a 1k to work with them, something tell mes, its not even close to that :/ something tells me its more like $200.00 which is not even enough to cover BART and food--not even talking about rent.

To this, i wonder how people even hold down "day jobs" when they do plays. In a dance company, you have set weekly classes and rehearsals....but what else do people do, what if they work 25-40 hours a week? No one can make it to everything.....

The world sucks in this way, its highly unsteady for the artist :/ but that's the way it is.....money and work comes and goes--and you are always on the lowest bracket of taxes...great! However, you get to create, preform, and change through art. Quite an amazing feat! worth it? I think so....

A Dance Company based in Xicano/Mexica Tradition, Voguing, and Contemporary Dance Practice. This WEBSITE and BLOG serves as way for Cuauhtemoc, his mitote dance company, and collaborators, to share their vision, IDEAS, work, dancing, future, PERFORMANCES, and history.

photo by Rachel Holt

MISSION

The mission of Cuauhtemoc Mitote Dance Company is to foster, create, and perform new and dynamic dance-based work which utilizes experimentalism, and embodied histories to produce Mitote* about timeless and current cultural issues.

We are based in a traditional and contemporary dance practice, stemming from Danza Azteca, Two-Spirit and LBGTQ, Voguing, Latina/o, and Classic American dance cannons.

Artist-Scholar-Warrior

Cuauhtemoc is a quare, indigenous, xicano dancer, choreographer, traditional and contemporary artist, and writer. He is from Santa Cruz California--but he considers himself from the Bay Area generally. His work, Choreography, explores pure-unadorned steps, shapes, forms, and rhythms gathered from ancestral memory, and tends to hold themes and issues of race, gender, sexuality, sub- & Counter- Culture.
He holds an MFA in Dance from Mills College, and a BA in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity from Stanford University.
His current project is developing Mitote-- a Dance form which merges contemporary and traditional dance practices, blurring the lines between ritual and performance, but in a modern sensibility.
Mitote is an mix of Inter-tribal Dance, Jazz, Ballet, Modern&Post-Modern Dance, Contemporary Dance, Aztec Dance, and Voguing